


crack open myself and what do you see

by clizzyhours



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Beauty - Freeform, Body Image, Character Study, Gen, Insecurity, Isabelle’s POV, Pre-Series, faulty religious symbolism, i am literally not looking for critique i just wanted to write, isabelle and a quick study, this is self projection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 16:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clizzyhours/pseuds/clizzyhours
Summary: Isabelle and a study of body. A women-made weapon.





	crack open myself and what do you see

**Author's Note:**

> triggers: self worth. body image. comparisons. etc.
> 
> thank you so much!

She cannot weep but she aches inside.

To kneel on the cold, marble floor of the ancient temple and to bare her soul. To offer forgiveness and prayer to the Angels above. 

Isabelle is not even remotely religious by mundane standards and yet she found herself drawn here. 

She cannot and so Isabelle bows, bows, bows her cascading ink hair, her head titled down.

She does not pray but she thinks, she hopes, and she bites her ruby red lips to not let fathomless noise escape.

She hopes and hopes and hopes, emotions surging inside of her like a hollow tree.

You’re more than perception, she wants to say. More than beauty.

She cannot - her mouth trapped.

Isabelle feels caged, a prisoner in her own body and built to Nephilim confinement.

Expectations are mundane. They cannot belong and yet they do -

her mother. Her mother taught her to wield her femininity as a weapon, to apply makeup and lipstick and be a mere distraction.

She remembers.

Isabelle remembers her ornate silver full length mirror, a gift of sorts from her absentee father one year.

She remembers the sheer excitement she had, fingers tracing the intricate outlines and glancing at her self with a sense of wonder. A voyeur of sort.

She perceived and yet. 

Maryse Lightwood with her pinpoint black hair and flawless runed skin had slip beside her.

They stood together in the mirror, mother and daughter, darkeyesdarkhairtanskin. 

Isabelle remembers feeling a type of conflict swirling inside of her, torn between gazing at herself and looking enraptured at her mother.

She’s remember admiring her mother’s stature and elegance and the ability to wear herself proudly among the other Shadowhunters. A dignified Shadowhunter and Co-Head of the Institute but one of the few women around.

And she thinks of her young self, not fully grown and dark eyebrows and hair and body still growing. Isabelle had stared at her mother and she remembers comparing their differences. 

She remembers being envious. Stark confusion. Bewilderment.

What does it mean to be beautiful? Isabelle had wondered.

What would it be like to be Maryse Lightwood and to step into her shoes and just simply be? To be everything.

It was one of the few times, she recalls, her mother and her having a moment. Maryse had led her to her vanity and together they sat, her dark hair being brushed and braided and her mother had presented cosmetics with a secretive type of smile.

Maryse had taught Isabelle a world of femininity but she herself had fashioned it into armor. Made herself a weapon. 

She went further with her mask, far, far away from to escape her mother’s disapproval with glitzy clothes, mesh tops, and scandals to rival a gossip-y novel that Isabelle keeps hidden.

Isabelle had forged her own way. A non-traditional road.

Her mother wanted Isabelle to be a conservative matter of beauty, her temperament calculating and cool and frozen shut.

She didn’t want her reckless heart or her intelligent mind or any of what Isabelle had to grant.

Maryse wanted Isabelle to be everything she wasn’t.

Maryse wanted obedience and for Isabelle to follow.

Isabelle didn’t want to bend to her mother’s whims or to Clave.

She wanted to make her own way and carve her own path.

And yet. She still desperately craved her mother’s approval and coveted treasured moments. She was rewarded with nothing but coldness.

And yet. She defied her mother constantly but still hoped to earn her approvalrespectlove. She tried and defied in an endless pattern.

Isabelle loves her mother and yet. 

And yet along the way, Isabelle found something broken within herself.

Isabelle has always worn her heart on her sleeve. To be the supportive shoulder and calm tension between her brothers and smile widely at older condescending men when they question her intellect.

She tackles dalliances with Downworlder’s and flings with mundanes and every once in a while with fellow Shadowhunters, women and men alike.

Hearts are breakable and Isabelle refuses to let hers break.

Isabelle is the only daughter and she’s in the shadows of her older brothers. Her younger brother Max is much too young and By The Angel, she would tear the world apart for him.

Alec and his duty and the secrets he keeps to himself. Jace; the golden boy who can do no wrong. And Max? Oh.

She loves them and yet.

Be good, her father had told her once when she was younger with her glancing at him with dark, wide eyes.

Set an example and yet it’s ironic that his words have come back to bitten her in the present, an old ghost. His cheating heart, she thinks. 

She loves him and yet.

Isabelle had been one of the few girls growing up at the Institute and she’s remembers being ferocious in her ability to the train.

She practiced with her whip day in and night, long but grueling hours. Isabelle wanted to be perfect and so she had trained until her body could move with her whip like a perfected dance.

Isabelle did her best to practice and train and to the best among the boys, the men, and she is.

Isabelle remembers selecting her Angelic rune and the private confidence it had given her.

It was bold. It was a general fuck you to the world around her.

And with each time after that? She chose them in evident areas where she could show off her collarbones and slender neck and her fit arms.

Isabelle transformed herself into a show. A performance for all.

Isabelle has the body and the skill and the sexuality after all.

She consumed herself with it.

On missions? Isabelle would lead her brother’s. She danced in clubs and on stages until she would unleash her electrum whip, choking demons until they were incinerated ash.

She flirted and complimented and weaved her way in.

Isabelle performed for all including herself.

She’s a marionette and a toy at once.

Isabelle is a weapon woman-made.

She makes weapons. She wields weapons. She herself is a weapon and it serves her well. It serves the Clave regardless of her complex feelings towards their Shadowhunter society as a a whole.

She thinks of Aline Penhallow and her valiance. Her courage and kindness and one of the few women - girls, friends, she had growing up.

A dear friend of hers and yet.

All the world is a stage and some days she feels like she will never escape herself.

Isabelle keeps her head bowed and hopes fervently. 

And yet.


End file.
